REFRACTIONS (2022 - 2024)
In DCT:SYPHONING, the Angel of History watches over 2 DCT Blocks, navigating the different ecologies of compression complexities.
When they enter higher complexities, the environment around them seems to collapse into a cairn of broken vectors, reminiscent of a Spomenik.
In Refractions
(in light and time),
the Spomenik, or cairn of broken vectors renders into a Pen/Rose Stairs to Nowhere when caibrated with the help of a CyCLOPS corner reflector network.
Refractions installed at iMAL for End and Beginning.
If a myth is an algorithm
that functions as a tool
respective to a time and place,
recursively,
an algorithm too can become a myth,
connected to and lost with,
its iterative updates and procedural contexts.
Refractions is a research project initiated during my residency at NeMe in Cyprus in 2022. It has since expanded iteratively.
A century after Walter Benjamin’s Angel of History’s first appearance, image processing technologies have evolved dramatically. The Angel traverses a landscape littered with piles of obsolete technologies, where trade-offs stifle progress and standard settings obscure clarity. Caught in ripples of distortion and impaired by blind spots, she finds it more and more impossible to render the world around her.
When the Angel learns about Wodan, the Cyclops god who sacrificed an eye for the sense of future vision, her interest is piqued. Fascinated by the lore of future failure,a perspective diametrically opposed to her fixation on past collapse, the Angel enters “Wodan’s Grove,” hoping to learn more.
But as soon as she steps inside, she is caught in a recursive double blind between future collapse and past obsolescence. Everything around her turns to ruins.
With no sense of direction—up or down, forward or backward—the Angel is suspended, unaware that she has tumbled into the abyss of her own Myopia.
Realizing that her environment is synthesized by procedural algorithms for which she is neither the intended user nor a possible interlocutor, she loses all confidence in resolving the data herself.
Momentary panic sets in.
If her tools cannot render this data, perhaps another framework might recalibrate the glitch. In a effort, she scans frequencies she usually keeps muted. Deep within a C-band frequency, she detects a faint echo: a CyCLOPS.cy corner reflector, part of a decentralized AI system that recalibrates data misaligned across time and space.
Finally, she resolves her phase difference and her perspective becomes clear.
ITERATIONS
The residency at NeMe made this exploration possible, allowing Menkman to work with Taietzel Ticalos, Marios Isaakidis, and Irini Mirena Papadimitriou. Soundtrack by Debit.In dialogue with NeMe
The development of REFRACTIONS involved collaborations and iterations across multiple locations and formats:
REFRACTIONS VIDEO INSTALLATION WITH SOUNDTRACK BY DEBIT AND CUSTOM SIGILS OR WALLPAPER
18/01/2023 — 21/01/2023. Refractions in Light and Time, 3D environment installation with custom wallpaper, shown at NeMe.
20/09/2023 —11/11/2023. Refractions in Light and Time, 3D environment installation with custom wallpaper, shown at RIXC, Riga, Latvia.
10-14/5/23 —Refractions in Light and Time, 3D environment installation with custom wallpaper, shown WRO, Poland
08/08/2023 — Refractions in Light and Time lecture performance at RMIT, Melbourne. 27/09/2024—01/12/2024. Attention upon Arrival @ Schafhof, Munich, Germany.
07.11.2024 —16.02.2025. End and Beginning @ iMAL, Brussels, Belgium.
14-15/112024 — AI MADE ME DO IT, Exhibition @ studio3 Institute for Experimental Architecture, Innsbruck University, Austria.
17/112024— Artist talk about Refractions, Schafhof Munich, Germany.
WITH KIMCH AND CHIPS:
15/03/2023 —17/03/2023. Cyclops Retina, in collaboration with Kimchi and Chips, The Beams, London.
24/03/2023 —Artist talk. The Beams, London. Audience: 250
The residency at NeMe made this exploration possible, allowing Menkman to work with Taietzel Ticalos, Marios Isaakidis, and Irini Mirena Papadimitriou. Soundtrack by Debit.In dialogue with NeMe
The development of REFRACTIONS involved collaborations and iterations across multiple locations and formats:
REFRACTIONS VIDEO INSTALLATION WITH SOUNDTRACK BY DEBIT AND CUSTOM SIGILS OR WALLPAPER
18/01/2023 — 21/01/2023. Refractions in Light and Time, 3D environment installation with custom wallpaper, shown at NeMe.
20/09/2023 —11/11/2023. Refractions in Light and Time, 3D environment installation with custom wallpaper, shown at RIXC, Riga, Latvia.
10-14/5/23 —Refractions in Light and Time, 3D environment installation with custom wallpaper, shown WRO, Poland
08/08/2023 — Refractions in Light and Time lecture performance at RMIT, Melbourne. 27/09/2024—01/12/2024. Attention upon Arrival @ Schafhof, Munich, Germany.
07.11.2024 —16.02.2025. End and Beginning @ iMAL, Brussels, Belgium.
14-15/112024 — AI MADE ME DO IT, Exhibition @ studio3 Institute for Experimental Architecture, Innsbruck University, Austria.
17/112024— Artist talk about Refractions, Schafhof Munich, Germany.
WITH KIMCH AND CHIPS:
15/03/2023 —17/03/2023. Cyclops Retina, in collaboration with Kimchi and Chips, The Beams, London.
24/03/2023 —Artist talk. The Beams, London. Audience: 250
Documentation of our first Cyclops research in Serifos, at the Cyclops throne and inside the cyclops cave.
Locations of different lineages and families of cyclopses I traced all over Europe
plaque of the CyCLOPS.cy Strategic Research Infrastructure Unit, an optical infrastructure network in Cyprus supporting the Sentinel satellite 
Documentation of my visit of CyCLOPS.cy in Limassol at the polytechnical University
Locations of the 12 CyCLOPS.cy corner reflector Network
ALEV01 + ALEV02
AKMS01 + AKMS02
SOUN01 + SOUN02
ASGA01 + ASGA02
MATS01 + MATS02
TROU01+ TROU02 - INACCESSIBLE BECAUSE MILITARY ZONE -
GOOGLE SATELLITE SCREENSHOTS
GOOGLE SATELLITE SCREENSHOTS
12 CyCLOPS.cy Corner Reflectors (2024)
prints Installed at Schafhof, Freising (by Munich, 2024)
optical infrastructure network, that supports the Sentinel satellite data to be calibrated.
optical infrastructure network, that supports the Sentinel satellite data to be calibrated.
Cyclops Retina (2023) In collaboration with Kimchi and Chips.
Commissioned Install for Thin Air @The Beams, on till the 4th of June, London, UK.
In Cyclops Retina, Kimchi and Chips and Rosa Menkman combine their contrasting research into light as both a material and neurological phenomena to create an experimental video essay presented in an experimental format. The specially commissioned narrative written and narrated by Menkman takes us on her journey into the cave of a cyclops so that she might learn how to see into the future. This journey is illustrated by millions of beams of light which are merged in the haze to create floating graphics in the air. The installation and narrative delve into unconventional modes of vision, pushing boundaries and exploring new ways of experiencing light and perception.
Commissioned Install for Thin Air @The Beams, on till the 4th of June, London, UK.
In Cyclops Retina, Kimchi and Chips and Rosa Menkman combine their contrasting research into light as both a material and neurological phenomena to create an experimental video essay presented in an experimental format. The specially commissioned narrative written and narrated by Menkman takes us on her journey into the cave of a cyclops so that she might learn how to see into the future. This journey is illustrated by millions of beams of light which are merged in the haze to create floating graphics in the air. The installation and narrative delve into unconventional modes of vision, pushing boundaries and exploring new ways of experiencing light and perception.
